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tv   House Session  CSPAN  December 2, 2013 2:00pm-2:31pm EST

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all of their across the government hard work. it is another example of the federal government raking down silos and working together to implement a national hiv strategy. now, as i close, i would to share with you a few of the ways that the historical -- >> secretary of state john kerry, president obama with statements marking world aids day. see the rest of it on our website c-span. board. the u.s. house back in session today. live now to the floor of the house. washington, d.c., december 2, 2013. i hereby appoint the honorable steve womack to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy. chaplain conroy: let us pray.
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gracious god, we give you thanks for giving us another day. you have blessed us with all good gifts and this past week with thankful hearts, we gathered with family and loved ones throughout this great land to celebrate our blessings together. bless the members of this people's house who have been entrusted with the privilege to serve our nation and all americans in their need. grant them to work together in respect and affection and to be faithful in the responsibilities they have been given. as the end of the first session approaches and much is left to be done, bestow upon them the gifts of wisdom and discernment that in their words and actions they will do justice, love with mercy and walk had you ever beenly with you. -- walk humbly with you.
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amen. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1 the journal stands approved. for what purpose does the gentlelady seek recognition? ms. foxx: mr. speaker, pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, i demand a vote on agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal. the eaker pro tempore: question is on agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the journal stands approved. the gentlelady from north carolina. ms. foxx: i object to the vote on the grounds that a quorum is not present and i make a point of order that a quorum is not present. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on the question are postponed. the pledge of allegiance will be offered by the gentleman from texas, mr. poe. mr. poe: i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
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the speaker pro tempore: the claire will entertain requests -- the chair will entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentlelady from north carolina seek recognition? ms. foxx: i request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlelady from north carolina is recognized for one minute. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. discussions about health care often turn into discussions about jobs and the economy. the two are undeniably linked. obamacare, its unfunded mandates, broken policy incentives and tax penalty structure is exacerbating the crisis of unemployment in this country. my constituent, sandy from winston-salem, knows this firsthand. she contacted me to share how obamacare is impacting adjunct professors in north carolina community colleges. she said, our hours have been cut because of the unaffordable health care act. this legislation is the worst thing that could have happened to the average american. her story isn't unique. stories abound of community colleges working to figure out how they will manage to comply
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with obamacare's costly employer mandate. for some it means cutting part-time employee hours which shortchanges both workers and students. americans care about health care and they care about jobs. obamacare is the wrong solution for both. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? mr. poe: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from texas is recognized for one minute. mr. poe: mr. speaker, the secret nuke deal with iran over thanksgiving is alarming, saith the saudi prince. prime minister chamberlain would have been proud after the st gave the snake salesman of the dez ert. -- desert. it looks like the west was willing to sell out israel for, quote, peace in our time.
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saudi arabia just like check low slovakia didn't get to vote on the deal. they ever the meal in iran's hostile appetite. the news said that the united states unfroze $8 billion in iranian assets and reduced sanctions even before the united states gave away the mineral rights. isn't that lovely? iran left geneva with a smile, pockets of money and fewer sanctions. the united states got the promise that iran would be nice and not nuke its neighbors, and that's just the way it is. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? mr. burgess: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to rise to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from texas is recognized for one minute. mr. burgess: i thank you, mr. speaker. four, five years ago when health care reform was being talked on the floor of this house, one of the ideas the republicans put forth is increasing competition, sell of health insurance across state lines. we see with the sell of automobile insurance, 15
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minutes could save you 15%. everybody knows that. why not afford that same cost savings for people buying health insurance? but the democrats would never accept it. but now the affordable care act requires that some of my constituents in texas purchase their insurance in the d.c. exchange. clearly that's selling across state line. the problem is it's not lower cost. it's higher cost. it doesn't increase your access to a physician. it decreases your access to a physician. high deductible health plans. for ad a high deductible years. that cost has doubled in the exchanges in my district. we don't allow constituents to pair that up with a health savings account. if we really wanted to get the correct market incentives, we would allow the pairing of these high deductible plans with the health savings accounts. what about the fact that 47% of people are paying higher
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emiums now, according to health insurance? why don't we allow them the same deductibility in the high insurance group markets? these could have been done four years ago which were omitted by the sdats in charge. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina seek recognition? willie green i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute -- mr. wilson: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from south carolina is recognized for one minute. mr. wilson: america's greatness is heavily dependent on small business success and creating jobs. in south carolina, small businesses make up half of our economy. sadly, these hardworking business owners have been suffering devastating setbacks due to the president's job-destroying policies. more recently, the failed implementation of obamacare has forced higher taxes and extensive regulations on these employers. this unfriendly business climate has prevented small business owners from expanding and creating jobs.
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while traveling in south carolina's second congressional district, i continuously hear from small business, the national federation of independent business and employees who are plagued with uncertainty. smaller paychecks, inability to meet insurance requirements and reduced hours are some of the concerns. congress must work together to replace obamacare with commonsense solutions that has long proposed by congressman tom price of georgia. in conclusion, god bless our troops and we will never forget september 11 and the war on terrorism. congratulations to steve spurrier and the president for the gamecock victory saturday. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from michigan is recognized for one minute. countdown clock
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says 25 days and 10 hours and it is ticking. that's the countdown to an immediate cutoff of emergency unemployment insurance for 1.3 million insurance. without an extension of this vital program, they will lose their entire coverage. every dime of it. who are they? they are americans laid off through no fault of their own struggling to find jobs and recover from the worst economic crisis in 70 years. they are an estimated 20,000 veterans who have exhausted their state benefits after leaving the military and unable to find work. they are mothers and fathers to an estimated two million children. and they are counting down to december 28. so far the economic recovery has left them behind. congress must not simply do so as well. we must extend this vital
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insurance. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? > i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, this thanksgiving, as our family gathered joyfully for dinner, we thought also not only of our happiness but of the many families that can be torn apart by our broken immigration system. mr. doggett: we gave thought to those who were gathered at that very moment here on the national mall going without food, fasting for justice and they've been doing that now for weeks. thanksgiving is about the first immigrants in this land, in this land of opportunity, but today we find too many of our neighbors are denied opportunity because of their immigration status. they can't board a plane, they
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can't come out of the shadows. they don't know when they go to work in the morning if they'll find their family members there at night. this is not right and the time to fix that is right now. the only thing preventing a bipartisan response to the immigration problems we have in this country is the unwillingness of the speaker to permit a bipartisan vote on reform legislation. and to those who are not moved by their heart, they should be moved by their pocketbook, because the economic potential of permitting these individuals , 2/3 of which in mexican families in texas without documents have been here for a decade. letting them contribute to america. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of
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representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on november 22, 2013, at 10:52 a.m. appointments, united states commission on civil rights. with best wishes i am sincerely, karen l. haas, clerk of the house. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until approximately >> with one minute compete -- speeches and pleaded. three bills on the bills today -- agenda today. to the white house for today's legislative breeding -- briefing that began just a few moments ago. qwest what i think is important to note is that the queuing system is a feature designed to improve the user experience.
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we talked about concurrent users , it was always going to be the case that on a day like today we would see a surge beyond even the vastly improved capacity result oft are the the changes that have been made and the fixes that have been made. what was important when we talked about this for -- before, is that we had a queuing system that made for a better user experience so that individuals could get into that queue, could he notified when the best time to return to healthcare.gov and enroll when they so desired. among the other improvements made to the site is the improved and more sophisticated windowshopping tool which americans who are only at the stage now as looking at of the -- at the options available to them without enrolling, and without having to get in a queue.
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>> on a conference call yesterday, there he seemed to managementwith the style that has been in place, and was he talking about secretary sibelius? who was he talking about when he's into question the way that process was being managed? jeff has beent taxed with doing, and is working on everyday is improving the healthcare.govhe operations, focusing specifically on the teams that are making the fixes necessary to the website. that work has been ongoing, and has delivered significant improvements. jeff was also referring to was something that we have all been quite candid about. the website did not function.
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it was not nearly up to the standards necessary, october 1, and it should have. does on us, that is why we have dedicated the resources and brainpower that we have to fixing it. this is all about the goal that we set with the passage of the affordable care act, was -- which was that millions of americans need to avail themselves of quality affordable health care insurance, many of them for the first time. , ande focused on that healthcare.gov antiarmor avenues by which why you could -- and the other avenues by which you can enroll are the means to that end. it is our response will he do sure that that website, and import part of the process of getting those americans who want quality affordable health care enrolled effectively. jeff has been a part of the efforts of the has been on board. -- is thisclarify
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just for today? >> by noon today we expect thousands of the visitors to the site. i believe that is that today's vigor -- figure. >> from midnight on 212:00 noon? noon?to 12:00 >> i believe so. the to give you a sense of volume that we are seeing, which we anticipated. that is why was so important to put in place the queuing system because not only just visitors, but there are obviously those who are trying to and want to enroll. we want to make sure that their experience is vastly improved, and if they are trying to enroll during a surge. that they are given the information that they need to make sure that they are in a queue and can come back to the
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when it would be more effective and efficient for them. than they vastly more say they can handle it a day, right? >> 800,000 in a day. that is just a one-day thing? to the refer you expectations for numbers. we always expect today to be a big day. numbers thateir are smaller than the 80,000? >> again, there are visitors to the site, and then there are are those who are trying to enroll. you can go and visit and shop, you can bend a little time on it, you can spend a long time on it, but if you register and select a plan, thereby enrolling, that activates a different part of the system. that is where you would get in the queue. not to visit, but to enroll. >> the 370in the qe?
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5000 are visitors to the website. john? first, there've been reports that 100,000 roughly have been able to enroll in the month of november, is that correct? >> i do not have specific data. these are the kinds of things that, as we saw the previous toth, that age is just needs hhs needs to gather. i would incurred you to wait until we have hard data from hhs. improvementsll you were made to the website throughout the month of november as we discussed. i would expect that the numbers who was successfully enrolled in november would exceed the numbers who successfully enrolled in october, but i do not have a hard figure for you. >> and terms of the goals you
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set for this moment, in terms of the website being functional for the vast majority of users, is it mission accomplished? saying, we were working very hard to make the necessary fixes to improve the website so that by december 1 it would function effectively for -- vast journey of users majority of users. the metric that we use to measure that has to do with response time and the stability of the site and the error rate. i know that jeff and others to do the cms briefing have gone into those metrics. we believe we made the important progress that we've set out to make by november 30, but as we said in november, and i have said just now, the work continues to make continuous and permits -- improvements. the focus is not on the endgame, allthe system by which
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those millions of americans who are clearly interested in enrolling and reducing quality affordable health care insurance are able to do so. that is our goal, and that work continues today. d and important milestone in that effort, but the work continues. >> let me try to crystallize that. we try to pin down what vast majority means, and you do not want to quantify. very clearly, in terms of the goal that you sent for this moment in time, is it mission accomplished? is not oneat phrase that i would employ. what i would say is what jeff said. we were able to make the necessary improvements to the website so that the vast majority of americans who use the website can have an experience in which the website functions effectively. it does not mean, as i said in november and october, it does
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not mean that there will be no problems with the website going forward. that does not even occur on the most highly functional private sector website. what it does mean is that we have made significant progress. we have made the improvements to the system that we hoped we could, and then more work continues. >> how do you explain this and offer most of the day so far, people tried to get on, and have gotten that message of the website is too crowded? >> the number of people who have visited the website up to two noon today, we have completely anticipated, and i know telegraphed that we would see surges in the number of visitors and the number of people trying to enroll in a day like today. that is why we built in the queuing system wasn't that we would improve the experience of those users who visited the site over what the experience -- they experienced back in october, when it was not functioning properly for the vast majority of users.
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up inwho are being queued a sophisticated system that allow them to return to a site when it would function more efficiently for them. >> how do you say -- what do you say to those who have still gone on yesterday and today and are unable to enroll? what would you say? >> i would say that we have seen a steady improvement in the site. that improvement continued over the weekend, and today. one is absolutely the case is that we need to continue our work, and that while the vast majority of users are able to access the site and have it function effectively, on a day like today when you have a surge ,hat we are likely seeing you're going to get this queue message potentially if you're trying to enroll, which allows for you to return to the site when it is going to be less crowded. that is a vast improvement over the periods that people had
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during the search periods or any periods really. there are visitors to the site, and are those that are trying to enroll potentially. it is also the issue of how many overall visitors to the site over a certain time in the day, first as the number of visitors at a given moment. that is what generates the queue message. you are able to window shop, a much more sophisticated tool than you had in the past. we are confident that the number of people who are successfully navigating the system is improving, and has improved significantly. >> your presidents are -- what assessor said that you probably w -- >> he scored the touchdown. >> he did. [laughter] >> he said that it will be explicable that somebody
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involved in the creation of the website does not get fired, or a group of people do not get fired. do you agree with that? on, and i are focused know this is what robert said in that interview as well, that it is important to focus right now on making sure the necessary fixes to the website are made so that it functions for the vast majority of users. that we continue to make a permit so that these improvement can be made. issues on personnel are not something that we are focused on right now when it comes to making the affordable care act work for the american people. we want to make sure that millions of americans who so clearly are interested in in thecant numbers access provided to them by the formal care act and up portable -- and affordable health insurance, are able to get it. what we said in past weeks we made sure today. we are focused on not on monday morning quarterbacking.
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the president noted that we will go back and look at this time, and there is no question that he tops the list among those individuals who are frustrated by the failures that we saw with healthcare.gov in its lot. -- launch. right now he is focused on making improvement for the american people who again, as today is evidence of, are so clearly interested in this quality portable -- affordable health care insurance. >> the white house called in several allies in the world the campaign for the health care , do not said next week pursue a big advertising or enrollment push because we are not white ready. doesn't that speak to though the site is approved, it still has core fragility?
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the people are supposed to support this, were told that they are to hold off? >> the numbers that we are talking about in this briefing imagery that our issue is not with the number of people who have demonstrated their interest in coming to the website and potentially rolling and get it covered. making sureed on that that process works for the many, many americans who want to make it work. what i'm saying -- >> you're saying don't do it yet. >> for the 375,000 people who visited the site by noon today, i think that they did not need an advertising campaign to visit. we firmly believe that expected that in this time in particular we would see many, many americans looking at their options and enrolling. not trying ton
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advertise and get more americans to do that, because we are seeing those americans show up already with a demonstrated interest. our focus is on making sure the website works as effectively as possible, and the other means that they have available to them to enroll would be working as effectively as possible at this crackle time. >> there is no need for labor unions, or other groups to do anything jabber kate people just -- to advocate? >> what i'm saying is that this week, we do not see a need to inform people of the fact that they can go to the website and look at their options and enroll. what they need is a functional website that can handle large capacity and help them get rolled, right? >> again, i would void you to the many briefings given by jeff .
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we are targeting for this time, that it would eat functioning as effectively as it was back october 1. the number of total users in a day, weekend up -- we believe we can achieve that. good toch is always exceed that, which is why we needed to make the permits to the queuing system that we needed to make. we have heightened interest in -- and heightened demonstrated by the numbers trying to roll. we believe that the numbers are bearing us out. that focus this week is going to be on a future that those systems work as effectively as possible. >> you're talking about the interest this week. people who are close to the website, and also on the production that you made internally, not this week, but next week, but two weeks from in -- is a up later
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crucial time. those who want covered by generic first, it is going to be an even bigger surge and we will seem this week. the final deadline if you want your coverage to be effective by january 1. you have to have this site not ready just for this week, but what was projected internally here to be even larger numbers of people who are not going to be just visiting the site, but needing to get that covered so that they get a budget refers. are you about it, is the president confident that the website will be ready for that expected and predicted surge of people? that we havefident achieved significant , andvements in the website intentionality. as proved by the metrics we have got over thus far, and we will continue to make progress and improvements to the website in the days and weeks ahead. ifr absolutely right that you want covered on your first, you need to enroll i december 23
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, and obviously to pay your premium by the deadline set by their insurer. be the is going to biggest spike that this administration will have seen come and people coming to the website are seeking coverage. >> that may be the case, but i would refer you to the cms briefings for what they might have about their expectations. i think it is always been the case that even prior to the problems that we had with the website, that you would see relatively small levels of april much -- of enrollment in the first month, and it was much smaller even than the level expected because of the problems with the site. and then that those numbers would increase, and that they would increase significant leak as we approached certain deadlines. december 23 is want about march 31 is another because would you -- is another.e >>

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